Friday, November 1, 2013

The Halloween that sort of wasn't...

I feel like everything about this Halloween was rushed or generally considered an afterthought. While the costumes were bought well ahead, we didn't actually try them on for real until Wednesday night. Wednesday night was also the night I bought candy and the night we carved our pumpkin. I also had to make a treat to share at the office, so you can imagine how much fun that was on top of a hellish day at work. Still, Jacob was relatively cooperative with the pumpkin carving, and in the end it was a collaborative effort. I had the idea for the mouth, and Jacob suggested the square eyes. I originally wanted a triangle nose, and after much debate and Craig suggesting a triangle as well, that's what we went with. I like the finished product...

The pumpkin seeds are still sitting on a bowl on my counter, unrinsed, if that gives you any idea of what the last few days have been like. I was up pretty late on Wednesday, which didn't really bode well for Halloween itself.

My day at work was crazy again (post coming soon on that) and I ate way too much crap during the course of the day. Craig picked up Jacob early since he tried to make his Halloween parade (no dice--he got stuck at a player appearance and just missed it), and Jacob wasn't feeling well and ended up taking an hour-long nap. We ordered in some gluten-free pizza for dinner to make that easier, but Jacob didn't want to eat, and by the time I got home I wasn't much in the mood for food either. I was rushing to get home and get our pumpkin on the porch, the candy in a bowl, and the boys in their costumes, and fortunately, Craig took care of a couple of those things for me. We finally settled on the porch to enjoy the warm weather, but it did start to rain, which was a bummer.

In the meantime, I took some pictures of Carter in his costume...

Hard to see here, but he's a doggie. The tie is a bone, and the doggie face is on his hat.

Just ignore the fact that one of his booties fell off...and enjoy that they are adorable.

I had Carter in his stroller on the porch for a while. I snapped these pictures while we were waiting for our special guest of the evening...

I just love how Carter is watching Jacob here. That's pretty much how it is most of the time. I look forward to when Jacob acknowledges him back!

The best part of this picture is that Jacob is hooking the bowl :)

So, that special guest? Yeah, Jacob got to trick-or-treat with the Knighthawks' mascot, R. Thunder!

I don't know whose idea it was originally, but when I was chatting with the mascot's "handler" afterward, he said that he'd always seen other mascots doing it (via Facebook, etc.) and wanted to do it, too. It was a nice photo op for Craig to post somewhere, and it was fun for Jacob, too. Unfortunately, the rain and wind picked up shortly after they went out, and a few minutes later Jacob came sprinting back (minus Craig and R. Thunder), afraid he was going to blow away. Oy. He ended up getting convinced to go back out a little later, but by then R. Thunder was gone and that trip out didn't last very long either. I haven't seen what candy he ended up with, but I do know that we have plenty of leftovers ourselves because we didn't have many trick-or-treaters. We had a few big bunches, and a lot of downtime.

By the time we stayed in for good, I wasn't feeling very well. Jacob still wasn't feeling great either, and we watched some Charlie Brown (Halloween and otherwise) for a bit before bed. Carter fell asleep on the floor while he was playing, and I was too sick to do anything about it for a while. Craig got Jacob ready for bed while I writhed on the couch with a stomachache, and eventually he put Carter in his crib, clothes and all. He didn't even get his night bottle. I climbed into bed at 9:30 and spent most of the night tossing and turning, with a few trips to the bathroom for southern hemisphere issues. I was almost sure I was going to throw up, but in the end I didn't. I'm so-so today, but at work anyway.

In the meantime, Jacob woke up once and was practically delirious, crying about how he wanted to do Halloween again today, that he wanted a different costume, and a bunch of other randomness. He still wasn't feeling well, but miraculously he didn't have any other major wakeups. Carter woke up once and Craig got him changed into his pajamas and rocked him back to sleep relatively quickly. He came up huge, considering I could barely get out of bed. Jacob had a dentist appointment this morning that was impossible to reschedule, so I made him go to that and he was still insisting that he didn't feel well enough for school. Craig made the judgment call to keep him home, but we're going to have to be extra vigilant that this is not a common occurrence. We do know he's been a little extra tired, complaining of a stomachache and not wanting to eat, so he's probably not entirely faking it. I don't know if this could in any way be related to going gluten-free (or getting accidentally glutened--though that seems doubtful), but I suppose it's possible. A lot is going on inside that little body right now, I imagine. Some people talk about going off dairy for a while as the body can become lactose-intolerant temporarily while it is healing, so that may be something we consider.

I'm really just hoping for a big reset this weekend. I have a lot of stuff I want to accomplish around the house before two busy weekends ahead. Next Saturday we have a vow renewal for friends of ours. Then we have a birthday party in Craig's family on Sunday, and we were supposed to go to an event at Strong Museum that day, as well, and I have yet to figure out how both things will be happening. The next weekend I'm going to a concert with a bunch of my college friends in Buffalo. I was going to take the kids with me to stay at my parents' and give Craig a break, but Jacob's lacrosse (which starts next week) may get in the way of that. But the house is a bit of a disaster right now and I'm desperately hoping for a few chances to get that stuff cleaned up. Carter's winter 12 month clothes need to be brought out, too, and I'm a little behind on Jacob's school paperwork. I need to brainstorm more gluten-free meals, since I've run out of my initial ideas. I'm sure there's about 12 more things I'm forgetting, but you get the idea.

So....Halloween was sort of a bust, but I look forward to next year when we'll hopefully have a healthy Jacob (in more ways than one) and Carter will be running around like a maniac and should even be able to enjoy some trick-or-treating himself, even if we don't let him eat all of the candy just yet. It'll be here before we know it, I have no doubt. Now, on to November...